A false sense of security is the only kind there is. – Michael Meade
On August 16th, a federal appeals panel in Washington, D.C. rejected a challenge to the District of Columbia’s sex offender registry on the grounds that it is a “civil system of registry” (like driver’s licenses) and “not an additional [and unconstitutional] criminal penalty.” This is, of course, total bullshit; registries restrict where registrants are allowed to live (often to the point of making it virtually impossible for them to live anywhere and exposing them to police persecution via shaming tactics and nuisance charges); they violate registrants’ right to privacy and safety by publishing their names and pictures online and in print, thus making them targets for harassment and even murder; and they restrict registrants to low-paying, dead-end jobs, and force them to modify their behavior in bizarre ways (such as turning their lights off at Halloween, posting signs in their yards or answering their doors with the phrase, “I’m a registered sex offender”). Even when registrants travel, they may be branded by huge orange “sex offender” labels on their driver’s licenses or state IDs. To pretend all this isn’t punishment is disingenuous in the extreme; in fact the only support the court could come up with for this outrageous judgment was that “the registry is housed in an administrative agency, not in a court office or in an agency charged with carrying out punishment.” By that logic, beating someone to death with a desk stapler isn’t murder because a stapler isn’t generally used as a weapon.
But even if you believe that sex offender registries are constitutional, even if you believe that a lifetime of punishment for a non-capital crime isn’t excessive, and even if you ignore the fact that 95% of the people on such registries are there for non-violent “offenses” which don’t involve children (such as soliciting prostitutes, public urination or older teenagers having sex with younger ones), there’s yet another argument against the registries: They don’t work, as detailed in this August 18th Chicago Tribune column by Steve Chapman:
…Sex offender registries once sounded like an urgent necessity. They came in reaction to publicized crimes in which children died at the hands of convicted sex offenders. One of the most shocking involved a 7-year-old New Jersey girl, Megan Kanka, who in 1994 was raped and strangled by a paroled child molester living across the street from her home. New Jersey enacted “Megan’s Law,” subjecting sex offenders to registration and community notification…Today, all 50 states maintain registries and make at least some of the information available to the public. But this was a reasonable notion that has been damaged by indiscriminate expansion. It’s one thing to notify neighbors when a serial rapist moves in. Many states, however, lump frisky teens in with violent adults. Others…include mopes who were caught trolling for prostitutes or urinating in public. Some states also put broad curbs on where convicted sex offenders may live. In Miami, many of them have taken up residence under a causeway for lack of an alternative. This outcome may not warrant sympathy, but it makes it harder for police and citizens to keep tabs on them.
Such flaws would be of minimal consequence if the laws served to prevent crime. The surprising revelation is they don’t. A 2008 report funded by the U.S. Justice Department found the original Megan’s Law in New Jersey to be a nonevent. The policy, researchers documented, “showed no demonstrable effect in reducing sexual re-offenses” and “has no effect on reducing the number of victims involved in sexual offenses.” The zero effect had a cost above zero — nearly $4 million annually for the 15 counties included in the study. A more comprehensive study was undertaken by Amanda Agan, a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Chicago, and published recently in the Journal of Law and Economics. Analyzing data from across the country, she detected no tangible gains from this approach. “Rates of sex offense do not decline after the introduction of a registry or public access to a registry via the Internet, nor do sex offenders appear to recidivate less when released into states with registries,” she writes. Evidence from Washington, D.C., shows no connection between the number of sex offenders on a block and the rate of sex crimes.
That doesn’t mean you and I are crazy to prefer knowing about the pedophile next door. But it suggests that the information offers no actual benefit. After all, most convicted sex offenders do not go on to be arrested for new sex offenses, and more than 90 percent of child victims are assaulted not by strangers but by relatives or other people they know. Sex offender registries may cause parents to focus on the remote peril while ignoring the more pertinent one. And, as in the examples cited earlier, they can inflict harsh punishment that departs from common sense and does nothing for public safety. Shielding citizens from vicious predators is unquestionably one of the central functions of any sound government. Megan’s Laws were enacted in the sensible pursuit of that goal. What they offer in practice, though, is counterfeit comfort.
Chapman’s a lot more conciliatory than I am, but then I never thought the registries sounded like an “urgent necessity” and in fact I argued against them from the time they started popping up like mushrooms. Also, I think relying on government to protect oneself is both infantile and foolish, and though I didn’t realize (in those pre-internet days) that the rate of recidivism for sex crimes is actually lower than for other crimes, the fact that the registries don’t work is hardly a “surprising revelation” to me because I knew even then that the vast majority of sex offences were committed by acquaintances.
So, the registries make a mockery of justice, shred the constitution, create a permanent criminal underclass and don’t even accomplish what they were designed to accomplish, but that’s not all; as one of my favorite non-sex bloggers pointed out in a Forbes column last summer, they might actually make neighborhoods more dangerous:
…in five states, a man can end up on the registry for having sex with a prostitute. In 13 states, it is a registerable offense to urinate in public, and in 32 states, it’s just as bad to be caught streaking. Yes, streaking. That means that when we look at a little map of our neighborhood and it’s covered with red “Sex Offender” dots, there’s often no way of telling whether the guy down the block is a child rapist or a jerk wearing a headband (and nothing else), bent on re-living the Carter years. Seeing a bunch of dots is enough to make us lock our kids inside, where they get fat, bored and addicted to “Halo 3,” because we think it’s “Halo 3” outside. Goodbye, any sense of community! Which is ironic because community–knowing and looking out for each other–is exactly what makes neighborhoods safer.
The author of that column, Lenore Skenazy, writes Free-Range Kids, a blog dedicated to the proposition that the modern bubble-wrap school of parenting is creating a generation of dependent, neurotic closet-cases. Skenazy advises parents to let their kids develop self-reliance by doing things for themselves and on their own without 24-hour parental surveillance. She’s written on the topic of sex-offender registries a number of times, most recently on July 21st in reference to this story (as featured on The Agitator). Take a close look at the first response to Skenazy’s column, then #42 and #55 on The Agitator; as long as there are people like that commenter (I’m reasonably certain it’s the same guy on both blogs), who actually equate teenage bullying with forcible rape and believe it’s perfectly reasonable to condemn people to a lifetime of punishment and stigma for acts committed at the age of 14, dismantling these registries is going to be an uphill battle no matter how ineffective (or even counterproductive) they are proven to be.
One Year Ago Today
“Just Plain Weird” describes several calls which simply defy categorization.
That made me laugh! But it’s such an accurate description of how lawyers and judges think. They are so obsessed with the technicalities of law that they miss the big picture.
I’ll second your recommendation of Skenazy’s blog, which is excellent. Between her blog and yours, you practically have an instruction manual for human males from birth to old age! (Instruction manual for human females is still awaiting advances in quantum computing).
One interesting, sorry…several interesting facts about the UK counterpart to Megan’s law (Sarah’s Law) was when the nation’s favourite tabloid The News of the World closed due to sleaze, corruption and phone hacking, the only “defense” they had was that they had always supported Sarah’s law and “protected the rights of children, rather than the rights of paedophiles”, therefore the paper had always been a “force for good”.
Well now that’s not looking too good as it was revealed a while ago that the founder of Sarah’s Law (the mother of Sarah Payne) had had her phone hacked into by NOTW journalists. But it wasn’t just any old mobile, it was a phone bought by the NOTW’s editor at the time, and given to her – as a gift!
Is it any coincidence that the groups lobbying for such “laws” are the ones that have no qualms with snooping around their friends as well as their enemies?
Don’t you people get it? Whether it’s the “Save the Children” laws, anti-prostitution laws, gun control laws, child support laws, divorce laws etc. and their enforcement, it is all about reducing our U.S. Constitution, natural rights & liberty given by our Creator(GOD) to a mockery which the U.S. Constitution largely has been made into a mockery. First you use any guise to protect the people’s security especially if it’s children who alegedly need the protection to reduce liberty. Second you reduce liberty slowly with unconstitutional laws against liberty by convincing people it’s constitutional. The next step is either to do away with the U.S. Constitution altogether after the enforcement of it has been hollowed out and it’s intent has been rendered impotent. Our U.S. constitution has largely been hollowed out and made impotent and will continue down this path as far as I can forsee.
Benjamin Franklin made two important quotes which are, “(The government) You have a republic if you can keep it”, and ” Those who would trade liberty for security will soon find they have neither nor do they deserve it.” Our ruling elite are taking the advice of Nicolo Machiavelli, author of The Prince, who said it is easier to take liberty away from the population of a Republic gradually and by deception rather than suddenly and by force.
The majority of our population enjoys it’s increasing tyranny and slave like existance because of increasing ignorance and willful stupidity respectively. Our ruling elite and government have done well at reducing our liberty, and they don’t want the common person to know or do any better. What people never seem to realize is that noone needs as much protection from the government to defend against outlaws, foreign enemies etc. as our ruling elite and government say we do. Even children don’t need the kind of protection the government and our ruling elite want to give them. The kind of protection our government under our rulers offer is counterproductive because it reduces both liberty and security. At the very least noone should be a registered sex offender for urinating in public nor engaging in adult prostitution. Only fools seem to never realize that the greatest threat to the nation’s children is not criminals, but the government itself.
Another Benjamin Franklin quote is ” Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner, and liberty is when the sheep is well armed(able to defend itself against the wolves)”. Most people would either be against us or neutral to our views. Most people seem to think that they will never be the sheep until too late. This is one reason why unconstitutional laws are allowed to flourish such as registering public urinators as sex offenders.
Many public urinators had no other place to go and usually try to be discreet, but find themselves being labeled sex offenders for example. People seeking adult prostitution and the prostitutes shouldn’t be labeled as sex offenders We could go on, but you get the idea.
States such as Wisconsin gave themselves the right to forcibly withdraw your blood if you are suspected of drunk driving and refuse to take a breathelizer test because driving is a privelege. So in other words, you could rape and murder someone, but the police and prosecution would need a warrant to get your body fluids such as blood, but not for drunk driving. So now you see how our ruling elite and government reduces our liberty slowly but surely. They use anti-prostitution laws, sex offender laws etc. the same way.
Nobody has ever been able to convince me that “registering” a “pedophile” ( young man was a “chicken hawk” who preyed on 14-16 YO males , plying them with beer, and then doing his thing”)did anything to protect the society in general. in fact, in the gated community in which I lived many of the residents wanted to make it a violation of the HOA rules to allow a registered individual to reside in the community. ( Seems the “pedophile” was kicked out of his residence and wanted to live with his Dad while he got his ducks in a row. a group of misguided busybodies started the petition to protect their young children from this “predator”. The community was divided but fortunately cooler heads prevailed and no HOA action was taken. Yeah,no little kiddies were assaulted either.
The Registry may make Bill O’Reilly feel better but as we see it does little good anywhere. But the matter makes populist headlines and is an easy fix. Too bad it doesn’t work.
Coincidentally, Radley Balko pointed out an Reddit chat with a sex offender today.
Since we’re talkiing about crimes, and sex crimes in particular, then here’s one. If the government was so concerned about your children and the future of the children, it wouldn’t enforce child support payments against teenage boys after the said teenage boys impregnated their female teachers. It’s not about the children or the sex or the crime, folks, It’s about governmental control increasing and failing even more miserably than before to protect us while decreasing our liberty.
The sex registry database is another tool the elites use to oppress men. When we defeat feminism and misandry, men will start regaining their rights back and the sex registry database will either be reformed so that only violent offenders are on it or done away alltogether because there’s no database for other types of felonies.
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/inevitability/#comment-11947
I also left a bunch of comments in a previous blog post. Scroll up to read them all.
Keep in mind that everything our ruling elites and government does is divide and conquer. They divide us on gender, race, class etc. and gain more authority by creating hysteria on many fronts besides making life more difficult for men. They start by finding a problem and saying it’s worse than it is or they create a problem from scratch. then they offer a solution which turns out to be worse the problem, then they offer a sollution to the the origional sollution, and repeat as often as necessary. It always gets worse. This cultural Marxism will collapse just like the traditional Marxism.collapsed in Russia(USSR). There’s more going on than what’s happening to men under this system. When men suffer, eventually women and children will suffer as we see all around us. I also believe that if women suffer, then men will suffer. It will collapse under it’s own weight, and the only issue is how many people will suffer and how badly will they suffer. A better order will come which will benefit men, women and children. Have hope.
Not so sure it’s to oppress men. The famous hottie blonde teacher that “seduced ” that teenaged boy in the Tampa area ( I cannot recall her name) is on that list as well. And for thpse that didn’t know they tried to hit her well after the trial with another criminal penalty because she had talked to a fellow waitress about boys and probably sex, and as I recall the waitress was a juvenile at the time . Not sure where she is but some local reporter is waiting to nail her ass at the first chance.
The Emerging Criminal War on Sex Offenders
http://harvardcrcl.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/435-482.pdf
It’s worth a read
The very concept of naming these laws after young female victims in inherently manipulative. What it does is makes is very difficult to argue against such laws because if you do, then “You don’t car that Megan died!!!!!”
The stranger-danger concept also lets people lie to themselves and others about what’s really going on. The worst thing you can do for your kids, as a woman, is bring a man into your house. So what I see on Facebook is a bunch of single moms — who are the problem — chest-thumping about “Megan’s Law,” while creating a problem by having boyfriend after boyfriend move in and out of the house when their kids are there.
But can you imagine trying to get across a meme on billboards saying something like “Hey mom, your biker boyfriend is the problem.” How would that go over with the proles?
You are correct in your observataions. I’d also like to add that not only are people inclined to defend females more so than males, but people are more inclined to defend girls over women. at least they like to feel that way even when they truly aren’t. It doesn’t seem to matter how rationally you explain how little productive good they do and how much harm they cause.
I’ve read that the biggest threat to a child’s life and well being is from a parent who is not the biological father. The second and third most dangerous parents are the non-biological mother then the biological mother respectively. The biological father was noted to be the least dangerous to his children. Most non-biological parents are good parents, but bilogical parents are the least dangerous to the children on average.
The non-biological father was noted to be the one must likely to harm, neglect and kill the child, the non-biological mother the second most likely and,the biological mother the thrid most likely on average. The biological father was the least likely to harm, neglect or kill the child on average statistically speaking. Like I said above it’s about our ruling elite and government making problems worse and stripping people of liberty while protecting them even less than before.
Actually, there’s another, more subtle layer to that, which is related to the whole confusion of the concepts of “child” and ‘legal minor”. Most “victims” of “molestation” are teenage girls who are biological adults, and what actually happens is that the mother invites a young male stranger (sometimes younger than her) to move in, where he finds a daughter who is like a younger, hotter version of the mother. If she flirts with him and he responds, or if he makes a pass with her and she consents, he magically becomes a “predator” and she becomes a “molested child” the second the mother finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her with her daughter.
@ Maggie
I agree that it’s usually teenage girls who are either sexually assaulted, raped or even the teenage girls who flirt and consent to sex with the mother’s new male lover. I’ve also personally known of girls younger than thirteen who were sexually assaulted by Momma’s new male lover and the men who assaulted them. I’ve also known mothers who after having sex with their new male lovers try to pass off their lovers to the daughters.for dating an so on.
I don’t usually reply to these types of things, but your blogs are truly fascinating and thought-provoking. My husband was convicted of statutory rape in 1996 in California (he was 27, she was two months from 16). He served a year in prison and was put on probation for 5 years. Ordered to attend sex-offender counseling and required to register for life. It has been 16 years and never another problem, however, every birthday or move it’s back down to the police station to sit in a jail cell to wait to register.
Everytime he gets a job, we sweat the background check. Now, our two little ones are playing T-ball and again, there is a background check in order to even help (this trickles down all the way to field maintenance). So, once again, we sit stressed to see if this time something will come up (fortunately they don’t put “statutory rape” on the California Megan’s Law website). The problem now is, though, that it doesn’t just affect us, it will begin to affect our children. These registry’s don’t protect anyone. They just brand people for life.
Even for those who are “violent” offenders, the police always kept an eye on them before there public websites. People fool themselves into a false sense of security when the let themselves believe that they are somehow safer because there is a registry. Most all registrants are free to roam the city (except the few who are required to wear GPS devices). They can go to parks, schools, places of worship, etc…any time they like.
Coleen in CA
Thank you, Coleen! Your husband is very fortunate to have such a supportive wife; it’s bad enough for men with a support network, so one can only imagine how awful it must be for those who don’t have one, or whose families refuse to understand. Good luck to both of you, and I sincerely hope those checks continue to come up negative.
Another excellent column, Maggie, where do you find them all and are you going to produce a book?
I love the ‘bubble wrap school of parenting’!
Sadly, however, politicians (and, to be fair, the public) are generally far more persuaded by what’s popular than by what has a firm evidence base. And often it isn’t even what’s popular so much as what they percieve is popular, given a very conservative frame of reference. Megan/Sarah’s law presents as giving parents rights to identify potential threats to their offspring. It does this at the cost of the ‘offender’. One would have thought that in nations with written constitutions, individuals would be better protected against the tyrrany of the majority than appears to be the case in the US. Looks like your Federal Appeals Panel in Washington puts pay to all that.
I am currently involved in negotiations with a publisher, so we’ll see how that works out. 🙂
I can’t claim credit for the “bubble wrap” expression; that’s one of my husband’s but it’s just so descriptive I had to steal it!
Alas, our written Constitution protected us for a few decades,but by the mid-19th century unscrupulous politicians were finding ways around the letter of the law via creative interpretations of elastic or vaguely-worded clauses. By the early 20th century the exceptions had become huge, and by the turn of this century the Constitution had become nothing but a paper doormat for the statists to wipe their feet upon. 🙁
Very well argued. It’s been known for a long time that in the majority of rape cases the victim knew the assailant, just as it has long been known that children who are victims of sexual molestation are almost always molested by a family member. But parents can’t hear that because it’s too scary, so they focus on the threat they think they can control.
Excessive punishment seldom works. Hardened criminals don’t ponder the consequences, instead they focus on the immediate rewards.
I firmly believe that the trend for harsher and harsher penalties is being led by very frightened morally superior women and their male allies.
I agree with your assessment. The safest thing for the children is to be with both biological parents. Statistically the biological father is the safest for the child to be around, the biological mother second, the foster mother third and the foster daddy last. You will hear that daddies are the most dangerous to children in the family which is technically speaking true, but only when you add the foster daddy, not the biological daddy who is the safest parent for the children even safer than biological mommies and foster mommies. How the foster mommy and daddy are defined is often very loose so a non-biological male who visits or better lives with the mommy can be defined as the daddy. The safety of the children is secondary to the mother’s GINA(vagina) tingle hence why divorce is so easy for women to get with less disastorous consequences not only for such said women than the men but the children too. GINA tingles are more important than the children is also why child support is vigorously enforced whether or not there is a divorce or the child is a bastard against men too as well as why so much welfare is handed out to divorced and unwed mothers. Easy divorce, the acceptance of mothers becoming impregnated with bastard children maligning men etc. creates the chaos. Our ruling elite allows and encourages these wild feral GINA tingles to create the chaos which they then offer sollutions which limit our liberty by going after these BAD MEN for the VIRTUOUS WOMEN and the even more VIRTUOS CHILDREN( Note my sarcasm about the BAD and VIRTUOUS).
Doc, I find this whole “gina tingles” nonsense highly offensive; it reeks of a Victorian notion that sexual satisfaction is improper for women. Almost 70% of men jeopardize their marriages and families for sex at least once in a marriage, so please let’s dispense with this pretense that the 15% of women who do it are a greater problem.
Furthermore, the idea that romantic relationships for women are nothing more than “gina tingles” (i.e. a mere physical sensation) rather than the complex emotional and psychosexual phenomenon that they are in reality, is nothing but another version of the Myth of the Wanton. The reasons so many women are dissatisfied with modern marriage are many and varied, and though I am just as concerned as you are about the consequences of the juvenile narcissism promoted by the neofeminists, to characterize it as mere lust is more like something I’d expect to hear from a 17th-century Christian fundamentalist preacher than from an educated modern man.
You are free to criticize the antisocial behavior of modern American women all you like, but please do so in a manner which reflects facts rather than religious rhetoric, and please stop this insulting oversimplification of an extremely complex social phenomenon which is not by any means solely the fault of women or even feminists.
While I think most rational people would agree that men are more likley to cheat then women, I’ve often wondered how many of them do because their wives cutoff sex either entierly or almost entierly
Probably quite a few, perhaps as many as half of them; the rest just have roving eyes, methinks.
Last I read, female infidelity was approaching men’s infidelity. If men have a 70% infidelity rate and women have 15%, then who are these men cheating with? There aren’t enough single women and prostitutes to go around. Most men don’t commit adultry with prostitutes or single women. Even if they did commit adultry with prostitutes at an alarming rate, they are less likely to get caught as long as they don’t get arrested. I doubt that the single men are being so successfully outcompeted for the single women even though many single women would have sex with married men because they must keep their mouths shut if they know what’s good for them these days. Both women and men are as more or less equally bad when it comes to infidelity, but men tend to do it more for variety and women do it more because the emotional connection is gone
You are right that the reasons for divorce are many and varried. I don’t condone adultry from either men nor women. Divorcing while bad enough is at least somewhat ok if there are no children, Once there are children involved, it’s infinitely worse. I agree that the complex social phenomenon is not solely the fault of feminists or women. Men play their part too. However, 70% of the divorces are filed by women because of no fault divorce and they pretty much know the husband will not get the house & children and will have to pay child support.
I personally don’t care if one wants to live a life of hedonism as long as they are single or at least his or her spouse agrees to it. Just don’t make the rest of us pay for it. Once children become involved either through bad marriages or divorce or illigitimacy, it tends to affect all of us negatively. That’s not to say it will in each and every case, but it tends to more so than in intact families. Unfortuneately, most people, men and women, these days in my humble opinion aren’t ready to be married or have children myself included. I’m at least self aware and humble enough to admit that. My opinion is that if you are not ready to be married, then don’t get married. If you are not ready to have children and you can not remain abstinent, then at least use contraceptives.
People divorce over many reasons including money, thinking they can get a better spouse, infidelity, emotional estrangement etc. Most of the married young women I’ve known think they can divorce and get something better. So do the young men. Often but less often than the young, the older divorcees do too. If they aren’t really ready to look at themselves hard in the mirror, then it’s not going to get better and maybe it will get worse. While it’s true that older people divorce less because they’ve matured, it’s also true that they know that their older selves have less options than their younger selves too, so they stay married. The thing is women have less options as they get older to remarry than men as whole, so why do they initiate the divorces more? I’m not saying husbands are better than wives because they are not, but why? One of the reasons, but not the only one is because they feel the emotional connection is gone. Men may feel this way too, but are less likely to bail out of the marriage because they know they have more to lose.
My attitude for the most part is do whatever you two or more consenting adults want to do behind closed doors( Lord knows I have) but when you involve children in your relationships, then it becomes something else entirely different. Marriage especially when it involves children is about raising the children in the right way so society and civilization benefit has been my entire point. In the old fault days, people pretty much divorced for adultry or extreme abuse and little else and the divorce rate was lower.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! Wrong answer! That fallacy has inspired so many unethical and unscientific “adjustments” to the figures that it’s enough to make one puke. The fact of the matter is that a GREAT deal of male infidelity, if not most, is accomplished with prostitutes; there are about 450,000 of us in the U.S, more than enough to take care of about 50 million cheating men (and that’s not even counting sugar babies, “hostesses”, strippers who hook on the side, etc). I alone accounted for 16 men a week in my busiest years, and some streetwalkers and brothel girls average four times that rate. 69% of men have seen a prostitute at least once in their lives, 20% see one “occasionally” and 6% “frequently”.
So yeah, the figures stand – about 70% of men cheat at least once in their lives and about 15% of women, though I need to point out that women who cheat don’t usually do it only occasionally as a large fraction of cheating men do, because infidelity is largely motivated by unhappiness or dissatisfaction for women and pure lust for men. Attempts to make it look as though fewer men or more women cheat are rooted in a monogamist bias, a feminist/moralist desire to deny the extent of whoredom and a political agenda dedicated to making men and women look more alike than they actually are.
I guess we’ll agree to disagree about the rate of cheating going on between men and women. You have your statistics and I have mine. I read that 57% of the husbands cheat and 53% of the wives cheat. Men do tend to be more of serial cheaters and quite often use prostitutes to accomplish this. However, with women entering the work force(or otherwise having their own money), urban anonymity, contracepttives and no fault divorce in which they get the house the kids and child support make it easier for them to cheat if they want. The mere fact that they don’t fear their husbands harming them as much in the past makes it easier for them to cheat. Infidelities go up for both men and women at the end of marriage. I too don’t believe in the wanton women who will have sex with anyone. However, when the emotional connection is gone, the women are more likely to cheat or divorce. Women are also more likely to cheat than men if a man is their boss, a man other than their husband is providing emotional support or is considerably better looking than their husband. Men on average are more promiscuous, but women are more hypergamous(hypergamy). Both sexes will lie about what they do sexually, but in my experience, women will lie more because they feel they have too much to lose if they tell the truth even today. I don’t blame women for this, and I probably would too if I were a woman because Slut shaming still has an effect even today, but less so than in the past for women. Office Romances happen ALL THE TIME, but the reasons men do it and women do it are often different.
I wish i could find it, but I remember a study was done in which people were asked how many lifetime sexual partners they had. Both men and women underreported. The testers knew this because when they were told they were going to be put on a lie detector test, then, both men and women reported a higher number. The things is men underreported much less than women did. Men were not honest, but they were more honest.. Both men and women on average reported similar number of lifetime partners. However, their were a higher percentage of men who had a high number of partners and a higher percentage of men who had a low number of partners in comparison to women. Women tended to clump more in the middle for the number of lifetime sexual partners they’ve had. Not nearly as bad as only 40% of the men who ever lived reproduced and 80% of the women reproduced like you stated in one of your articles, but you get the idea. Did you ever consider the possibility that an Alpha man(most desired by the ladies) could be having many different affairs with several different ladies? Did you ever consider that men who frequently use prostitutes are not always but often Omega( least desired by the ladies)? Don’t get me wrong, Alpha men will often use prostitutes too to avoid being caught and not destroying their marriage. Beta men which are most men fall in between Alpha and Omega men. Why would an Alpha man especially if he is single go to prostitutes? My answer is he wouldn’t especially if he is single. If men have no fear of getting caught, they will have a tendency to try to seduce an amatuer women into sex rather than pay a prostitute woman for it.
The difference is that your statistics are bogus. Honestly, Doc, you seem to forget who you’re talking to; I’m a friggin’ EXPERT in male infidelity, and I’ve done enough research to know about female infidelity as well. The figures you’re quoting have been “normalized”, meaning adjusted to more closely adhere to experimenter bias (in this case monogamist bias, the desire to downplay the difference between the sexes and the Puritanical desire to pretend there aren’t as many whores as there actually are). Even Potterat, et al were able to explain the difference in infidelity rates by including prostitutes, and they were only counting streetwalkers:
So believe what you like, but what you’re doing is exactly the same as trafficking hysterics who want to believe that there are millions of “trafficked children”, or feminists who believe one in four women have been raped: you believe it because it fits your world-view, not because it’s supported by evidence.
I’ve looked at statistics which may or may not be bogus. As the old saying goes, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Yours may or may not be bogus too.Who knows? Statistics can say anything you want depending on the questions asked and your world view. Somewhere, there is the truth. I do believe men go to prostitutes more than they like to admit, and that women will intentionally underreport the number of sex partners they’ve had more than men. Men will definitely underreport going to prostitutes for fear of being shamed as whore chasers and perverts. Women will underreport the number of partners they’ve had for fear of being labeled sluts and perverts. See the point—both men and women are ashamed to labeled perverts and are dishonest as a result. Most societies are not honest about their sexuality and their relationships. The USA is no exception. I’ve seen too many breakups of marriages and other romantic relationships. All too often, these relationships ended when one person found someone else or one person or both grew emotionally detached from the other even if no interloper was in the picture. I try to see all the statistics I can and see if it matches what I see in my real life. That may or may not be the reality of the world, but it is what i see of it. I’m sure you do the same. Everyone does.
Sorry, no sale. The statistics I use don’t require massaging and rationalization to conform with what most experienced, knowledgeable whores recognize as reality. If there were as many “cheatin’ wives” out there as you seem to believe, we’d be making a lot less money and Ashley Madison wouldn’t need to hire shills.
Lots of my fellow soldiers got “Dear John letters” Of course, lots of my fellow soldiers went to prostitutes too, Lots of them cheated on their wives with girfriends too. The military is different in some respects than the civilian world on sexual practices, but it’s not a completely different world. I do believe that my fellow soldiers were more honest when they were one’s friends though and trusted you. However, I knew many civilians who got Dear John letters too. Although women’s sex drives may be lower than men’s, I don’t think it’s that different. However, women’s sex drives do tend to be tied much more to their emotions tham men. Many men are too ashamed to admit that their wife cheated on him especially in the civilian world, but in the military world they are less ashamed because of the close comradery and the fact that our lives depend on one another more than the civilian world. Every single one of my fellow divorced soldiers had a wife who cheated on him or he cheated on her, It was about even. Some were honest with their spouses and other’s raised a lot of suspicion but were never caught. Their marriage may have been over before the divorce papers were official, but in many cases the cheating happened before the divorce papers were signed. I’m skeptical of my statistics so of course I’m skeptical of yours. Even if we disagree on some things, we both agree that neither men nor women are completely honest about their sexuality.
I am skeptical if your cited reasons women have access to “quick” divorce. You seem to be assigning male sexual appetites to women (ie “Gina tingles) and as the motivating factor for securing a divorce.
I come from a whole generation of broken families and I can assure you, ot one of the mothers of my friends divorced the father of their children so she could get her freak on with new men.
No man may have been in sight, but if she initiated the divorce, she probably didn’t feel the emotional connection anymore. Women’s sexuality seems to be more tied to their emotions. She may not have been looking for a man either, but it doesn’t matter once the emotional connection is gone.
Now you’re just contradicting yourself. First you asserted that women divorced their men because he wasn’t making her “gina” tingle anymore. Now you’re saying they’ve lost that loving feeling because women “seem” to have their sexuality more closely tied to their emotions.
Are we even reading the same blog?
Bastard or illigitimate children or children of divorce are tend to commit more crime, perform poorly in school, become drunks and drug addicts, divorce more often and have bastard children of their own etc. than children of intact families. There is almost no excuse to have bastard children or get venereal diseases with the contraceptives which are available these days. I realize that contraceptives sometimes fail, but the overwhelming majority of people get unplanned pregnancies and venereal disease because of failing to use contraceptives. More shaming and harsh punishment goes against those who engage in prostitution or get a drunk driving conviction who harmed noone and destroyed nothing than those who created children of divorce or bastard children. Consenting adults engaging in Prostitution in and of itself hurts noone and if you argue about adultry, infidelities and venereal disaese, a person could be adulterous or commit infedelities without prostitutes and is less likely to catch venereal diseases from prostitutes than others especially when prostitution is legal. Drunk driving is wrong and deserving of punishment and shame, but at least if he doesn’t do it again and has harmed noone and damaged nothing too, then the danger to society has passed unlike children of divorce or bastard children. Drunk driving in which the driver has hurt noone and damaged nothing should be shamed and punished less than creating children of divorce and creating bastard children. I’m not for shaming and punishing the children, but rather their parents. Prostitution shouldn’t be punished at all or even considered shameful for the prostitutes and the prostitutes’ customers if they are unmarried. Our American society once understood this, but no longer does. Hence the incresing chaos and resulting loss of liberty because of our messed upvalues in morals, mores and ethics coupled with a messed up sense of priority of those values.
Would you care to cite some references? In the 2002 study by Hetherington & Kelly – a massive, longitudinal study of the impact of divorce on children with some test subjects participating for 30+ years – found much more subtle results.
In summary, the researchers found that when compared to children of intact families (whose rates of behavioral, psychological & academic problems were 10%), divorce only contributed an additional 15% more problems. While that percentage represents some very damaged families and kids, that percentage is hardly a majority.
Furthermore, the researchers found that the overall impact of divorce depended greatly on the age of the children at the time of divorce and whether the family was what they called “high conflict” or just “quietly disengaged.” The younger the children, the more likely they were to develop psychological, social, behavioral & academic problems, as were the children from the “quietly disengaged” homes who didn’t realize the depth of their parents’ problems and therefore feel greater sense of loss.
I know from my own experience, the kids I grew up with who came from broken homes are the exact opposite of what you claim: all of us have college degrees and about half have advanced degrees. About 3/4 seem to be happily married with happy, bright children of their own. Many run their own businesses and are active in their spiritual communities.
The ones from intact families, while not degenerate criminals, don’t seem to have the drive (to not make their parents’ mistakes) to really surpass the bar their patents set. Yes, this is anecdotal, but I have around 90 friends from HS and jr. High that I keep in touch with and the majority of us from broken homes are doing just fine.
I never said a majority of children of divorce or even illigitimacy were likely to engage in socially and criminally more maladaptive behavior. I said as you pointed out above that it has a tendency to increase this. I’ll believe what you reported in your life, but I’ve seen different in mine.
The longitudinal study I cited above shows that approximately 10% of children of intact families are “problem children” – meaning that they have social, behavioral, mental and/or academic problems. The children of divorced parents show about a 15% increase in these behavioral problems (for a total of 25%). The study also indicated that the percentage is primarily affected by the age of the children and whether or not their household was one of chaos and conflict, or one where the parents’ marital problems were mostly hidden from their kids.
In homes with “high conflict”, children seem to benefit from the divorce in that their home life becomes more stable and peaceful. This significant decrease in conflict and stress seems to maintain, if not improve the lives of these kids. Also, the older the kids are, the less they seem to be negatively affected by their parents’ divorce.
It seems to me, and this is my opinion, not necessarily supported by research, is that divorce isn’t as bad as the moralists and other pearl-clutchers would make it out to be. I imagine it is similar to the research coming out about adult survivors of child molestation. Everyone used to say that child victims of molestation would be forever ruined psychologically and socially – having their trust and innocence destroyed. Current research shows that to be total BS. Most of these adults who were molested as children are doing just fine and really don’t understand why mental health professionals insist on viewing them as broken people.
But of course, selling those myths: divorce destroys families and children and that child molesters rob kids of their innocence and psychological security gets laws passed, politicians re-elected and fills church pews. The truth isn’t nearly as sensational, nor as profitable.
The study which shows that adults who experienced sexual contact while underage really don’t tend to have any unusual problems was the Rind- Tromovitch-Bauserman study, which I provided a PDF of on April 5th.
And I know exactly what you mean, because “therapists” keep insisting that all whores are “broken” as well. Sad and incredibly ignorant. The nuns used to say that “idle minds are the Devil’s workshop”, and it’s certainly true with professionals; if there are too many lawyers, doctors and therapists for all of them to stay busy, they manufacture cases out of people who aren’t crazy, sick or criminal in order to drum up business.
Doclove, I am a child of divorce. What would you like to do to punish my parents?
I’m being facetious, but in the past people really frowned upon divorce much more in the past especially if children were involved and back then there was fault divorce so one spouse or both spouses really did something wrong to get a divorce granted. My point is that in some ways we have gotten better and other ways worse. One of the ways we have gotten worse is the toleration of divorce especailly when children are involved which is really a symptom of not taking marriage seriously.My point stands that families are the basic building block of society and once you shatter the family and make it dysfunctional, you make society dysfunctional. When society becomes dysfunctional the politicians offer to limit our liberty to fix the problem. As we all should know by now, government sollution make things worse on average.
I disagree with Doclove. “One of the ways we have gotten worse is the toleration of divorce especailly when children are involved which is really a symptom of not taking marriage seriously.” What if your spouse developed raging alcoholism over the next five years? Alcoholics make terrible parents. What if someone has an undiscovered addiction to gambling that results in losing your home? In cases like this divorce is the wise course, and is wiser for the children. It’s true that children under 13 or so can’t understand why the divorce is happening and that it throws them into chaos. Some chaos, though, is better than complete neglect from one parent.
I agree with you, Champion. I’m rather ambivalent about divorce myself.
On the one hand, I can agree with Doclove’s assertion that people aren’t taking marriage seriously, but not with how he came to that conclusion. It continually baffles me how influential the wedding industrial complex has become – men and women seem to get all starry eyed when thinking about planning their “Big Day”. Couples seem to spend more time trying on dresses, rings, caterers, bakers and DJs than they do actually planning their marriage.
People really need to spend more time on planning how they will live their lives together: who will earn money? who will pay the bills? who will balance the checkbook? who will manage retirement accounts? how will all this change if they have children? aging parents? illness or disability? what happens if they lose their job(s)? what is their savings plan? how will they conduct their tax planning? will they give to charities? which ones and how much? how will they deal with family members or friends in need of financial help?
Does the couple want children? When and how many? How will they educate their children? how will they discipline their children? how will they provide for daily care if mom returns to work?
Where will they live? What if one spouse finds better work or is transferred to another city? state? country? How will they spend their holidays? free time?
These are all things that should be hashed out long before applying for a marriage license. Unfortunately, it seems most people run out to the jewelers to pick out bling they can’t afford and pray that divine providence will take care of things after the wedding.
On the other hand, I don’t think anyone should be forced to stay in a relationship with which they are unhappy. People change, people grow in different directions, mid-life crises are real and sometimes people have personal epiphanies that for whatever reason, don’t include their spouse.
Other times, spouses develop nasty habits including substance abuse, violent behavior or other risky behavior that no one should be forced to endure.
No fault divorce is a nice option if like in the first scenario, one or both spouses no longer want to be married. It also means that people can get a divorce for something trivial, but then again, who would want to be married to someone like that? (As for division of property, I understand it varies from state to state and YMMV).
Fault divorce is supposed to provide better protection, at least financially, for the offended spouse. Unfortunately, it means that people who just don’t want to be married anymore must create faults in order to secure their freedom.
Is divorce pleasant? No. Even when both spouses agree to divorce, it is painful, messy and expensive. But, I would rather people be free to get out of a relationship that makes them unhappy, no matter what their reasons or motivations for doing so.
Let’s see: causes problems without accomplishing the stated goal.
Let’s do more of it!
Well, that’s what the attitude seems to be with ab-only sex-ed, so why not with registries?
I don’t know why, but anytime someone mentions abstinence-only sex ed i am reminded of those creepy promise rings virginal daughters wear to show their fathers that they’re saving it for marriage.
You know I have been having a hard time with these numbers. I spend a lot of time reviewing the facts and reading reports and always finding myself thinking those that are willing to support laws like Megan’s Law, “You who are without sin, cast the first stone.” I find that is enough for me to keep pushing for the eye opening awareness of how flawed our country has been in dealing with sex ed. I can speak but there are times when I get tired of speaking. Have you gotten to this point? Do you think people are listening? Do you think the numbers the 800,000 people made to suffer under these laws are enough voices?
Sometimes I just feel alone in this struggle….